


Like Clockwork

by burymeinziam



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:15:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burymeinziam/pseuds/burymeinziam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Louis is in love with Harry and Harry is obsessed with time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Clockwork

Louis watches Harry.

He watches Harry wander around the apartment, checking over his shoulder every so often to make note of the time. He watches the plains of Harry’s face as his eyes roam over the clocks scattered around the living room just so he can be sure they are all the same and they are all correct. Louis watches as it happens now, while Harry is kneeling in front of their bookshelf lined with DVDs as he makes sure they are all in alphabetical order.

“You want any lunch, Harry?” Louis asks, his voice soft in order to minimize his disturbance. “It’s almost one.”

Even if it is quiet, Louis’ voice sounds strange and unusual in the living room. It’s normally just the sound of ticking and the soft sounds of whatever task Harry has set out for himself at the moment. Louis isn’t really supposed to talk while Harry is working, it’s an unspoken rule that the both of them sort of fell into, but Louis is hungry and the growling of his stomach is telling him that he can’t really wait any longer.

Harry doesn’t answer. He only makes a noise in the back of his throat that would appear to be angry if Louis didn’t know any better. Louis watches as Harry’s lips press into a thin line as he removes a DVD case from the shelf and checks to make sure the disk is inside. Louis can tell Harry is frustrated at the intrusion but is choosing not to say anything. He’s frustrated because Louis isn’t supposed to talk and because they both know this and because Harry doesn’t understand why Louis would.

Louis waits until the DVDs are done and Harry’s eyes turn toward him. Harry isn’t quite making eye contact but he’s looking at Louis nonetheless.

“I’m hungry,” Louis says. “It’s almost one; do you want lunch?”

Harry is quiet while he stands up and brushes the dust from his pants. He runs a hand through his messy, unbrushed curls before walking over to where Louis leaning against the wall that separates the kitchen from the living room and pressing their mouths together.

“Okay,” Harry says, his lips moving against Louis’. “What were you going to eat?”

“I was going to run out to McDonald’s or something. What do you want?”

Harry rests his head against Louis’ shoulder. “What I want.”

It’s his way of saying ‘the usual’ and if it had been anyone else Louis would have been annoyed with the answer, but this was Harry and Louis can’t help but to find it anything less than endearing.

“Okay,” Louis says and he watches as Harry detaches himself and returns to the living room to check the clocks and the watches that line the walls and the shelves. He watches as Harry pauses in front of a watch and picks it up, brings the timepiece close to his ears and listens while it ticks. Louis watches as Harry realizes the watch is off by a few seconds and begins to fiddle with the dial to fix it.

+

Harry had been this way for as long as Louis had known him which, when Louis really thought about it, was for a rather long time. His mother had helped out with a support group for kids with Asperger’s when Louis was younger and she thought that Harry could benefit from a one-on-one play date so she volunteered her son. Louis was only about ten and didn’t mind making a new friend. Harry was eight and he did, but his mother brought him back for a second time, and then a third and it all kind of snowballed from there.

Harry didn’t want to play the same games that Louis did most of the time but Louis didn’t seem to mind. Sometimes Harry would sit in the corner and flip through a picture book while Louis played with his action figures, both of them comfortable with simply being in the same room. Other times, although not as often, they would go to the park and play on the swings. Harry didn’t really like the park because there were too many people so they never stayed for more than an hour because anything longer would send Harry into a fit.

The watches and the clocks were Louis’ doing. Harry had become obsessed with the concept of time around his fourteenth birthday so, as a joke, Louis went out and bought him a couple of pretty clocks and a pocket watch from a local thrift store. Louis didn’t think much of it when Harry saw his gift and smiled big and bright before throwing his arms around Louis’ shoulders and thanking him for the present. After that Harry started collecting different watches and clocks. He scoped them out, finding them in thrift stores and other secondhand shops. He sought them out as if they were religious artifacts that reaffirmed his faith.

Louis asked Harry out when he was seventeen and Harry was fifteen at six twenty-three pm. on the seventeenth of July. Harry had checked his watch before he said yes and then proceeded to write down the time, estimating that it took Louis about seven seconds to get the question out so it was technically sic twenty-three and forty six seconds. Louis was too excited to be annoyed and too used to Harry’s behavior to worry.

That had been about six years ago. They’d broken up once when Louis had turned eighteen and Harry was worried about holding him back from actually going to any university he wanted because he had a “lame underaged boyfriend tying him down” as Harry had so eloquently put it. The notion of feeling responsible for someone else’s actions was new to Harry and that was what he decided love was. So Harry broke up with Louis for Louis’ own good but, as it turned out, Louis didn’t get into the university of his dreams and they were back together a few months later.

Now, they were living in an apartment a few miles outside of the city. Louis was getting his degree online while working nights at a call center and Harry designed websites from home while receiving supplemental paychecks from his father’s estate every month that would continue to arrive in the mail each month for the next ten years.

Harry bought approximately one new clock or watch each week and Louis hadn’t bought him a single timepiece since Harry’s fourteenth birthday.

+

Harry lets Louis kiss him and press him into the wall, doesn’t push his hands away when Louis’ grips at his hips and slides his hands underneath the thin cotton of Harry’s t-shirt. It takes a minute, as it usually does, for Harry’s shoulders to untense; for his mouth to soften and respond, for him to become more receptive to touch and allowing a few quiet moans to work their way out of his throat. It’s not that Harry doesn’t like physical contact, it just takes a moment.

It takes time.

They make their way to the bedroom, Louis pushing Harry down into the mattress and working his own clothing off in record time. There are four clocks on the dresser, two on the nightstand, five on the wall, and one on Harry’s wrist. The incessant ticking doesn’t bother him now, but Louis knows he’s going to need to find his earplugs before he goes to bed.

Harry sits up. He doesn’t say anything, but there isn’t really much of a need for words because Louis can read him like a book. Louis knows the way Harry’s eyes fixate on his erection and the slight twitch in his fingers before he’s reaching out and wrapping a hand around his cock. Knows the way Harry shifts a little closer, leans forward and wraps his lips around the slick head of his Louis’ erection. Louis groans and allows his head to fall back and his mouth hang open making it easier for him to remember to breathe. It takes him a moment to realize it, but Harry’s head bobbing, the motions of his hands around the base of Louis’ dick; it’s all in time to the noises of the clocks. It doesn’t bother him until it does and Louis is gently pushing Harry off of him and removing the rest of his clothes.

Louis will never grow tired of seeing Harry spread out across their bed. He sits back on his heels, lube in hand, and drinks in the long lines of Harry’s body. Louis runs his palms flat up Harry’s calves, his thighs, over the soft curve of his ass and up his sides until he’s eye level with Harry, their faces mere centimeters apart.

Louis kisses him, hands fumbling with the lube, as he nudges Harry’s legs apart before slipping a finger in. Harry bites his lip and turns his head to the side, uncomfortable. He’s always said how sex is nothing like the way it is in the movie, how they romanticize it all for film and the way the noises and sensations are never as good as the directors make them out to be. Harry won’t even look at Louis when they fuck, but it really isn’t all that different from any other time. Louis can count on one hand the number of times Harry has looked him in the eyes on any occasion.

After he’s bottomed out, Louis makes sure there’s real rhythm or pattern in the way he fucks into Harry. If he finds himself falling into something, he changes it up. Because of this, Harry ends up on his beck, his knees, his stomach, anything to keep things random and without time.

To his credit, Harry doesn’t complain, but he does look up at the clocks every chance he gets.

Harry is on his stomach, his hips rutting rhythmically against the mattress and Louis stretched out over him with his head pressed between his shoulder blades when he comes. It isn’t long before Louis’ own hips are stuttering and his spilling into the condom with a soft cry of Harry’s name.

“Twenty-seven minutes,” Harry mumbles into the sheets.

“Don’t care, Harry,” Louis says as he pulls out and rolls off of Harry’s back so he can tie off the condom and toss it into the trash near their nightstand. A few moments later he’s pulling Harry into his side and pressing a kiss into this hair. Louis reaches out for Harry’s wrist and glances down at the face of the ever present watch.

“If I were to ever get a tattoo for you I think I’d get a clock,” he says flicking his eyes up as he smiles at Harry.

“Don’t do that,” Harry replies, his voice serious as he snatches his wrist back and sits up in the bed. His eyes are intense as he checks the time on his watch and then the faces of the other clocks in the room. “Don’t ever do that.”

Louis sits up as well, concerned and wondering what he’d done wrong. It’s not very often that Harry gets upset about jokes and certainly not sarcasm since he has trouble noticing it. “Why, Harry? What’s wrong?”

“The time… it’ll be wrong,” he mumbles. “It’ll only be right twice a day.”

Louis can’t help the smile that finds his lips as he scoots closer to Harry on the bed and pulls him into his side. He buries his face into his unruly curls. “I was only kidding,” Louis whispers into Harry’s hair. “Why would I get you another clock anyways? You have enough to last us both a lifetime.”

Harry laughs softly, untangling himself from Louis’ grasp and sitting cross-legged on the bed. Louis notices that he has dried come on his stomach but doesn’t say anything. “You shouldn’t say things like that, Lou. It’s not nice.”

Louis sighs and runs a hand through his hair as he smiles fondly across the bed at Harry.

Harry who seems to have forgotten Louis’ comment completely in favor of wandering around naked and covered in his own come so he check the time on all of the clocks lining the walls and the dressers in their bedroom.

Harry is different and unusual and there are plenty of things about him that Louis knows he may never understand. But what Louis does know is that he’s un-mistakenly and irrevocably in love with this strange, beautiful boy who has a peculiar obsession with time and, as long as he has Harry, Louis figures he can cope with the constant reminder of time, the ticking and the tocking, and the perpetually growing number of clocks lining the wall of their apartment.


End file.
